Thanksgiving Tablecloth Project

If you read my post at Blissfully Domestic last week, then you know that I flipped my lid over this tablecloth from BHG.

I did a half-hearted search knowing full-well that I wasn't going to spend a bunch of money on a tablecloth that I could only use for a couple of days. Besides, I wanted to take a shot at making my own version.

Do you remember the painter's drop cloths that I used to make outdoor curtains on my back porch? They were around $6 each and the fabric is perfect for a rustic tablecloth. I cut one down to the right size for my table and frayed the edges.

Tip: If you want to keep the raw edge of a piece of fabric from fraying, you can dab it with a product like Aleene's Stop Fraying Glue. It's flexible and washable. I did that with this project because I want to be able to put the tablecloth in the wash without ending up with a pile of string.

For the words, I found a font that I liked and typed my text into Microsoft Word in a really large size (this was like 350 pts). Then I printed out the text and trimmed and taped the multiple pages together into one long sheet.

Here's where it gets a little goofy...I taped the long sheet to my sliding glass door since my fabric was too heavy to see the text through it unless it was back lit.

I secured my fabric on top of that so that I could see the text through the fabric. If your fabric is a little more sheer, you can skip this step. Then I traced the outline of the text onto my fabric with a marker.

You know that your husband has given up when he sees you taping a piece of fabric to your sliding glass door and he doesn't even ask what you're doing. Poor man.

Tip: When you're tracing your text, take special care to make sure you're always writing on the same side of the fabric. It would be a major bummer if you traced an entire phrase on the wrong side of the fabric TWICE! Not that I did that or anything.

Last step...Paint over the traced lettering with fabric paint. I used a brown with a little bit of shine to it. Here's a link to the product that I used.

Once I finished the tablecloth, I started staging my kitchen table so that it would look all pretty like the one from BHG. I was going to set it with my pretty white dishes and the good napkins. And then I thought...

Oh, come on. We all know that it's going to look like this in a matter of minutes. Just being real.

I'm really thankful for the people who keep me real.

Want to see some more Works for Me Wednesday posts?